


Bring him back

by The_silent_smile



Series: The not-so-happy life of Anthony Edward Stark [10]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, BAMF Tony Stark, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Character Death Fix, Crying, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt Tony, Hurt Tony Stark, Insecure Tony, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, Men Crying, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Tony Feels, Tony Has Issues, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Lives, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Tony-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 14:16:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19297426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_silent_smile/pseuds/The_silent_smile
Summary: I REPEAT, MAJOR ENDGAME SPOILERS!-Tony Stark died to save the universe.Now it's their turn to accept his death.But Thanos had been right: They were just too stubborn for that.





	Bring him back

The work was done.  
Everything resolved.  
The dusted brought back.  
Thanos defeated.

And he was dying.

The infinity stones lay scattered around him as if he were a five year old excitedly showing off his rock collection and not a 54-year-old man struggling to take each and every breath as the pain got so severe he couldn't feel it anymore.

He just felt numb. His side felt numb, his arm felt numb.

He could only stare as Rhodey dropped down in front of him giving him a weak smile before opening his mouth to say something. Only a quiet 'hey tones' came out of his mouth before he was interrupted by Peter.  
Peter Parker dropping to his knees in front of him. Peter Parker alive and breathing and here and alive and... And he wouldn't survive to see him be alive much longer would he?

This was it.  
This had to be it.  
His body was too numb and his muscles too cramped for this not to be it.

His final moments.

Peter was grabbing at him, near tears--no. Wait. Crying. Yeah, he was crying- while he begged for him to stay.

"we won Mr Stark, we won. You did it, sir, you did it. Tony, I'm sorry."

The kid was ushered aside by Pepper who grabbed him by the shoulder as Tony could only stare.

His heart beat slower and slower.

Yeah.  
Yeah, this was it.

"Tony, listen to me. We're gonna be okay. You can rest now."

And with those final words of Pepper Potts. His wife and mother of his daughter - oh god he was going to leave Morgan behind- he listened to her. Giving in to the tiredness, the numbness that swept over him like a blanket and scooped him up in its gentle arms.

Yeah, rest sounded good.  
Maybe he'd only sleep for a little bit. Only a little bit...

-

The wail that Peter produced was inhumane.  
A screeching sound so terrifyingly sad that it stopped hundreds if not thousands of others from catching up with their loved ones and turning to see what had happened.

And suddenly the battlefield fell silent.

Thousands of feet shuffled to get to the place where it happened, a gigantic crowd forming around the small group of people that sat next to the body.

Pepper Potts burying her face into the unharmed part of his neck, shaking uncontrollably while silent tears streamed down her face. Next, to her Rhodey, his expression one of pure pain as if something had been ripped out of him. A something that he couldn't live without that had him slowly dying as soon as it was removed.  
Peter sat on Tony's other side, also shaking, also crying, his sobs and heaves of breath filling the air on the quiet battlefield.

Pepper joined him in a matter of minutes. The silent tears streams turning into sobbing, screaming, heaving for air as she clung to him, to the chest piece that would never light up again, to the shell of the man she had given her heart to and who had given her his in more ways than one.

"m-move. Please move. I-Move!"

A voice, hoarse and thick with emotion came closer and closer to the tragic scene, practically fighting their way towards the little group of people.

Steve Rogers, tears clear in his eyes as he slowly took his helmet off and let it drop to the floor, the shield Tony's father had once so proudly presented to him with falling with it, the thing having been ripped into pieces. Vibranium breaking as if it were normal iron under the sword of the mad titan.

"Move!"

Steve Rogers, shaking though not as bad as the people sitting on the floor, breaking through the last line of people before coming to stand right in front of the group, only a few feet away from Tony's body that stared of into the distance with lifeless eyes. The sorrow they had held forever captured in the blank expression wiped away by the burn marks that covered the entire right side of his body.

"Miss Potts I- please I need to- Tony would've-"

"Steve. Go away."

Pepper, unable to speak as she held Peter while still trying to clutch to Tony, her husband, her everything, just nodded faintly as Rhodey spoke, the man's training in the military and years of having to do press just collected enough to form those words, tears streaming down his face heavily, constantly, as if they would never stop. As if there were no longer reasons for him to stop them anymore. Because there wasn't. 

"Rhodey-please I- I didn't tell him I'm sorry for-for everything."  
"You're too late Rogers."

A voice behind the captain made him turn around, searching all the tear-stained faces for who had said it. The voice, however, was that of a man slowly seeming to fly down, the cloak he was wearing seemingly giving him the ability to do so.

" What-"  
"He's gone. This was the only way that we could win."

"Mr Strange... The stones. Can't you-isn't there a way to-... to bring him back with them?"

"I don't think so, Peter. I'm-I'm sorry."  
"We can try though right? We can- We can bring him back?"  
"Peter I don't think it's possible for us to-"

Doctor Strange was interrupted by the captain shoving past him then, Pepper clutching Tony's still body as if she were afraid Steve would attack it as he lunged forward, though instead of touching the empty shell that just seconds ago held the kindest heart and the most genius mind inside of it, he grabbed for one of the stones, the orange one. Soul.

"Bring him back." He demanded, the power of the one stone alone in his hand surging through him like ice, the cold so severe that it burned him, seemed to burn him from the inside out and turned his veins to ice.

But he held on. Because they had lost one teammate, one part of their family, part of their souls, already. He wasn't losing another one.

And definitely not this one.

"Bring. Him. Back."  
"Steve. Steve, please stop I don't think this can-"  
"Bring him back." A voice beside Steve made him open his eyes which he had apparently squeezed shut in pain, to find Peter Parker holding another stone, body shaking with both the pain and the grief that was still tearing through him, lips trembling but his gaze determined, never leaving Tony's body.

"Peter I don't-"  
"I don't care Mr Strange. He can't be gone. He just can't."  
"Very well then."

That was the last thing the doctor said before taking the time stone, the thing floating just above the palm of his hand, and demanding the same they had asked the other two stones, the green crystal lighting up as if recognising the not quite touch of its old master.

"Bring. Him. Back."

They were holding onto each other now, each the stone in one hand and the other resting on one of the other's shoulders, a way of assembling all the stones power together may they need it.

They couldn't just use the timestone to reverse the damage. If they could, Doctor Strange would have done so ages ago and they would all be talking to a maybe tired but very much alive and breathing Tony Stark who's body wasn't permanently burned.

"Bring him back, bring my brother back." Rhodey now grabbed a stone, falling to his knees as the power of it made the tech holding him up short wire and shut down, though being pulled back up again and held there by Clint Barton, a grim expression on his face as the tears streamed freely. If they had a chance at at least saving one of the two fallen heroes, if he could somehow make Natasha's ultimate sacrifice exactly that what she sacrificed herself for: so that the rest of them could live, then he might be able to find a bit more peace in her act, how sure he might be of never being able to move on from it.

So Clint closed his hand around Rhodey's own, the two of them sharing the power of the stone, it still being nearly unbearable, the pain coursing through them like red hot iron burning into their skin.

More and more hands connected to shoulders and arm, four of the stones being held by the people closest to him, all of them shared by hundreds of people, a spiderweb of people spread out over the battlefield. The ashes of their enemy's being pushed into the ground as more and more people came to lay a hand on each other's shoulder. The echo of the words "bring him back" from every single person's lips, all of them laced with determination, grief, anger.

It was then that Pepper herself took the two other stones, screaming and falling to the floor as the power of it nearly ripped her apart. Though she was caught. dozens of hands lifted her onto her feet again, placed on her shoulders, her arms, even her legs as she slowly felt the power spread, becoming barely bearable enough to form the words.

"Bring my husband back."

And suddenly the shared power of the stones became so intense that people fell to their knees, though their hands still locked on others shoulders, all minds thinking alike, the one though, the three words in everyone's head.

And as the pain slowly ebbed away, the only noise besides all of their collected breathing was the coughing fit that a perhaps heavily scared but very much alive Tony Stark launched into, the coughs being stifled seconds later due to Pepper, Rhodey and Peter all throwing their arms around him, the stones being dropped to the floor, lying forgotten in the dirt.

"What-"  
"Shhh."  
"Pepper what ha-"  
"Shut up Tones"

Tony had the heart to look offended as Rhodey uttered the words, too busy trying to hold all three people at once with the one functioning arm he had left and trying not to cry out in pain as Peter pressed into his burned side.

"Tony... God, you scared us there Mr Stark."  
"Finally on first name basis are we kid? Hey. Would you mind moving over a bit, let me sit up..."

The three moved away, still keeping a close watch as Tony groaned and tried to heave himself into a sitting position, burned arm uselessly hanging by his side. He'd need a prosthetic for that. Ah well, better than kicking the bucket.

" Stark... "  
He looked up now, hissing as he tried to smile and the burned side of his face stretched painfully.  
"What happened Rogers"  
"You died. We... We didn't want you to go yet."

Tony nodded numbly, glancing over Rogers' shoulder to look at the rows and rows of people that stood around him, all looking, watching over him.

"Damn, didn't know I had such a big fan base."  
Peter chuckled wetly, Tony lifting his functioning arm and giving the kid a pat on the head while Pepper and Rhodey still sat by his side, both crying heavily, though smiling none the less.

He gave them a smile in return. Still heavily confused and right side still burned and useless, though for now, all he wanted to do was see his daughter and maybe give all of them an hour-long hug.  
So he stretched out an arm toward Rhodey, his friend carefully picking him up as he looked at the two people still on the ground, still staring at him as if he had just saved the unive- Oh wait.

"Come on kid, Pep. Let's go home, I bet Morgan would love to meet you, Pete."


End file.
